• Michael Gebert
  • Homaro Cantu at Moto

Tragic news from the food world: one of the city’s most endlessly intriguing and visionary chefs, Homaro Cantu of Moto, Berrista, and other restaurants, is suspected to have committed suicide yesterday at the site of one of his planned future businesses, a brewery called Crooked Fork, at 4419 W. Montrose. He leaves behind a wife, Katie, and two young daughters.

I left to play for a while and came back to the pan that was now black and blue with heat. I had seen my mom fry hot dogs. Seemed simple, put some butter in the pan, put the hot dogs in and cook it up. I had a little apprehension at first but I was getting hungry. I knew if I asked mom, she would just tell me to go to my room. Fuck it, let’s do this! I see a stick of room temperature butter on the counter and some frozen hot dogs in the freezer. I put the butter in, followed by the hot dogs and then it turns into an instant inferno. I stare at it for a second without asking for help. I was in awe of this thing I created.

Saying Trotter’s kitchen was formative, or reformative, for this street kid would be an absurd understatement:

“Hey Carl, do you know where I can get some heer schmeer schmeer schmeer?” David LeFevre called me Carl, it was like a pet name. Why Carl? Ever see Caddyshack?

I needed a guy to show me how to kick ass in a no hold holds barred kitchen with nothing but hall of fucking famers on every station. That’s what it was. A hall of fame crew. We all learned from each other and this team had some serious skills. Lets see, in the 4 years I was fortunate to work there, there was Matthias Merges as Chef De Cuisine, David Lefevre as Executive Sous Chef, Giuseppe Tentori as Sous Chef, Leslie Tellez as Sous Chef, Jeff Yankellow as Sous Chef, Sven Mede on Meat, James Diprospero on meat, Curtis Duffy on Fish, Jeff Mauro on Fish, Michelle Gayer as pastry Chef, Darren McGraw as Pastry Chef, Della Gosset as Pastry Chef, Elliot Bowels [sic] on Garde Manger, Brian Ogden in Pastries, Adam Sobel on Garde Manger, Megan Malony on Pastries, Christine McCabe on the hot line and Volundur Volundarson on Garde Manger. The list was massive and I am sure I forgot at least 50 other chefs running their own restaurants today.

Yet even if it proves that those were signs of an impending financial collapse, which would have been felt most keenly by someone who had been so poor in his life, yesterday’s news was more shocking and dismaying than anything I can remember in the Chicago food scene. Trotter died at the end of his great first act, but Cantu’s death came abruptly in what seemed the middle of his, and most tragically for his wife and children. One of his essays from 2012, too painful to read today, starts out with the chef’s parlor game of picking a last meal and turns into a loving tribute to the skills of Katie, his widow:

Over the next few months I saw a pattern develop. She would always try to outdo her last meal. I was the lucky recipient. Well, one of them. She loves to cook for her family and her many friends. We married a year and a half later, and have two kids. She works full time, and balances our craziness, and she is seriously the best cook I know.

One thing that is really similar about me and Katie is that she goes through phases while cooking at home and gets bored with recipes fairly quickly. She is always looking for that next great dish, but she has developed an arsenal of favorites. Her current obsession is making a yeasty, chewy pizza that is better than my favorite, Burt’s Pizza in Morton Grove. She uses tomatoes and basil from our garden, good provolone, an ancient black sheet pan that she has had for 20 years, and a crazy secret method of proofing her dough.

That’s what I would want for my last meal.